


come lady dawn

by anthiese



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, POV Third Person Limited, Speculation, pre-release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthiese/pseuds/anthiese
Summary: They're alive, but Faerghus Castle burns. (Mid-timeskip)





	come lady dawn

The sound of the dagger cutting through her hair feels louder than it should be. Ingrid watches it start to slowly pool around her, the golden color she'd loved so much, now unrecognizable, turned to a charred yellow mess. And she still feels the burning smell all over her body. She suppresses a shiver, and hugs her knees closer to her chest. Then, with one final cut, just above her neck, the last burned tuft falls to the ground, and she hears the dagger slipping back into its sheathe.

"Done." Felix murmurs from behind her. She hears him stand up and dust off his clothes, and then he's pacing the space of the empty barn, keeping an eye out the door. Ingrid brings her hands up, touches her head. The hair barely reaches her chin now, and luckily what was left of it is soft, healthy to the touch. Her head is lighter, but she feels colder. Naked. The way she felt since the alarm was sounded.

She pushes herself up to her feet, trying not to let her mind wander back to the fire. But her eyes drop to the burned hair on the ground, and another shiver runs down her spine.

"How do I look?" She asks, before letting the panic seize her again.

Felix stops on his tracks, fumbling with the clasp of his cape, and Ingrid walks past him, to the open doors that look upon the white hills. Right outside the barn, the pegasus she took from the courtyard is dozing off in a small patch of snow-covered grass, and in the distance, from Faerghus Castle, nestled atop the tallest hill, the flames still flare at the base of two towers, black smoke rising over the tall walls. The setting moon above looks so terribly, hauntingly pale.

"Like yourself," he answers eventually. His eyes linger on her for no more than a moment, yet Ingrid feels a wave of relief at those words. Her mind flies to Prince Dimitri, those empty eyes of his. How they'd known him all their lives, and how he'd become a stranger in the past two years. How they'd left him in there...

"Ingrid."

"Hm?"

"Catch."

She barely has the time to turn around, that he's already throwing her his cape, and she has to scramble forward to manage to grab it. Will she  _ever_  be able to afford taking her eyes off of him for a moment?

"You're shivering," he says, "and who knows when we'll be able to get our stuff back from the castle."

Down to his tunic, with his messy hair down to frame his face, he looks smaller, younger, and it almost feels like they're back at the monastery, sneaking out at night to cause some trouble. They did that often back then, together with Sylvain... And Sylvain is safe, she remembers, back at home with his family, far from that burning well. May the Goddess watch over them.

A cold wind picks up, reaching at her bare neck, and Ingrid steps back into the barn.

"Thank you." She says, finally. She takes her coat off, and throws the one Felix gave her on.

It's a heavy thing of grey leather and animal fur that reaches down to her feet, designed for the freezing winters of Fraldarius. She had a similar one, in her room, in case of heavy snows, but when the alarm sounded, she had to run with what she had on hand: the light, cream colored wool coat she was going to use to head back to Galatea, where the weather would be milder, the short sword she kept under her pillow, and that pegasus.

And Felix, of course.

She hands him her own coat. "You might be more used to this weather, but I can't have you catch a cold either, right now."

For once she doesn't have to insist, he sets it on his shoulders without complaining- and that's when she catches a glimpse of a torn sleeve, muddied with blood.

"You were injured? Where- how? Let me see that, Felix."

He looks away, and steps back, out of her reach. "Worry about yourself."

Stubborn, stupid child he is. Always been. It's almost comforting. Almost infuriating. "I'm fine now, and the only worrying thing nearby is  _you_."

"You were set on  _fire_  earlier."

"I'm not on fire now!" She blurts out, gesturing to the burned hair on the ground, then back to that on her head- short, messy, but still there. "Now sit down, and let me take a look."

He complies -drops to the floor, and rolls up the sleeve- though pouting the entire time, and Ingrid kneels at his side. Now, it doesn't feel like being at the monastery, but a decade before that, when they'd play knights in the Faerghus Castle grounds. Sylvain would hit too hard, every time, and then Felix would hit harder, and then she'd find them... and she'd hit the hardest, and after they'd learned she'd comfort them both. Even back then Felix would act coy, even if he was on the point of tears.

This time, instead... maybe she worried too much. There  _is_  a long gash on his forearm, and dried blood all along it, but the skin looks to have already started to grow back. Just a couple layers, leaving the gash a sickly pink, but definitely stopping the bleeding.

"You were healed?"

"Mhm." He replies, while she tries rubbing away the dried blood. "I was with Mercedes when it happened."

"I wish we knew what it is that  _did_  happen."

Felix hums, as if trying to recall something from years before. "We were both awake... in the Old Solar, over at the Central Tower, looking over some maps together-"

"At two in the morning?"

"At two in the morning. Then Mercedes saw something through the window... some figures heading for the Lord's Tower." The one where Prince Dimitri slept. Years ago, having his quarters so far from the Central Tower saved his life. It seems it had happened again.

"We were too far to give the alarm," he continues, "so we just hurried there... they were already inside. All with black capes and white masks... I took out two or three, Mercie maybe a couple more. But one was a bit too fast and..." he gestures to the wound, not without a hint of disappointment.

"Did you see the Prince?"

"He showed up immediately. Hadn't seen him with that look on his face since the last time he had assassins at his heels. Didn't know he still had it in him to make expressions like that." He shakes his head. "Dedue was with him, helped us fight."

"And then you were separated..."

"We stopped a moment to catch our breath first, thought we were done. Mercedes fixed this," he glances at the arm again, "and then we heard the signal. And the first blast."

"The Western Tower," says Ingrid, "where I was sleeping."

Felix nods. "I thought the three of them would be safer together, so I went to check instead."

"And you found me."

"And I found you. All the servants and courtiers had time to escape, so why did I find you still inside the tower and with your hair on fire, Ingrid?"

Well, of course this question was coming. The tips of her ears burn when she answers. "When the signal sounded I ran outside... I saw the first fire break out. I saw one of those people. Black robes and tome... They'd sent a spell out."

Felix cocks his head, and she realizes this is news to him. "It looked like an Arcfire," she specifies, "and I thought I was close enough so I... chased them inside the tower."

There's a beat of silence, while she thinks of how to phrase it in a way that won't make her sound _too_ incompetent, but he speaks before her. "You saw someone carry a tome like that, and saw them set an entire building on fire, and your plan was to go stab them?"

Now it's  _her_  who feels like a child. She really should've known better. "You asked why I was in there, and I told you." Because she'd been too confident, when she should've been helping the prince, or her friends, and instead...

Felix looks at her, dead in the eye. "You've gotten a bit too bloodthirsty, Inge."

It starts with her trying to hold back a smile, but she fails, and soon, for some reason, for the first time in what feels like an eternity, she's laughing, holding her sides, while he goes on and on trying to convince her that  _yes,_ _you're_ _starting_ _to_ _become_ _dangerous f_ _or e_ _veryone_ _around_ _you_ , and once she calms down, it feels like there's more air in her lungs.

"You seem better," Felix sighs, starting to stand up, "and the fire is almost out. Stay here until I come back with the boar."

Her head snaps to him. "You think you're going without me?"

"I am. All this trouble to get you to safety, I'm not dragging you back there."

"I'm a  _knight_." She scoffs. "The one who carried you to safety on my stolen pegasus. And I'm not the one with a slashed up arm here."

"It's closed now." He snorts.

Ingrid stands up, and a hand comes to rest on the hilt of her sword. "Not for long, if you don't let me come with you."

" _Fine_ ," he rolls his eyes, "but if you insist, you'll have to give me another ride on that thing." He gestures to the pegasus. Sleepy, stolen pegasus.

She nods. After all, the poor thing didn't fuss when they first fled the castle either, surely it's going to survive another flight with two riders. But the thought of going back there makes her heart race again.

"Do we know where they even are?" She asks once they're out in the dark night. Even the moon has left the sky now, hiding behind the snowy hills, leaving the distant, almost extinguished fires as their only light source, and dawn feels far away.

Felix thinks for a second. "They went for one of the secret passages. Probably the catacombs."

"His Highness knows all passages down there... but if they were followed..." she cuts herself off. Her friends, her prince, stuck in that labyrinth with one of those pyromancers... she doesn't even want to consider that.

"You said one of those people was using dark magic..." Felix starts, as if reading her thoughts, "do you think they might be..."

Ingrid blinks once, twice. There aren't many countries whose people have such affinity with dark magic. Surely, it's better to think of a small conspiracy, a group of mercenaries fighting for gold, but...

"Adrestians?"

Felix's face darkens, her answer confirming his suspicions. "Ingrid, if it really is the Adrestian Empire..."

"Then we're at war." She finishes, so naturally.

They stand in silence for a moment. She doesn't know what to say, she doesn't know what to _think_. They'd been to the academy together with Adrestian people, with the future empress, they'd... Dimitri's face forms in her mind. His blue eyes, the care and tenderness he'd always had for each and every one of them... how fast it had all disappeared. People change, don't they?

All she can do is get on the pegasus, and wait for Felix to do the same.

"Hold on tight," she says, "and pray to the Goddess that we're wrong, and that we're blind."

Then she spurs the pegasus, and they're taking flight, white wings soaring over a white world, and above them, nothing but the black sky.

**Author's Note:**

> (formatting problem should be fixed!)  
> helloooo! well. feels weird to have been in this fandom for so long and to start in here by posting fic for a game that isn't even out yet. anyway... this is just some spare thoughts on what might've happened during the skip, maybe 1 or 2 years before the war phase. started mostly from being unable to stop thinking about ingrid with short hair 🙄 and i like these two a lot cuz childhood friends are fun, so here u go!  
> and if ur down here, then i thank u for reading! and special thanks to @lentranced for looking this over for me, love u honeypie!


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